With the death of South African revolutionary icon Nelson Mandela, outside analysts and locals alike are expressing fear of a coming genocide of European-descent Afrikaners.

So significant is the threat in South Africa, some genocide experts are urging Afrikaners to consider fleeing their homeland.

Dr. Gregory Stanton, head of Genocide Watch and a man who himself fought against the apartheid system, warned as early as last year that South Africa was at Stage 6 out of 8 on the road to genocide: the planning and preparation phase.

“There is thus strong circumstantial evidence of government support for the campaign of forced displacement and atrocities against white farmers and their families,” said Stanton, after a fact-finding mission to South Africa last year. “There is direct evidence of government incitement to genocide.”

In an e-mail to a prominent Afrikaner monitoring the dangers, Stanton emphasized that Genocide Watch had raised the Genocide Stage level for South Africa to Stage 6 based on “evidence that the murders of Afrikaaner farmers and other whites is organized by racist communists determined to drive whites out of South Africa, nationalize farms and mines, and bring on all the horrors of a communist state.”

Moments after Mandela’s death was announced last week by current South African President Jacob Zuma, threats of killings and mayhem began appearing online.

Sources from South Africa told WND – and reporters on the scene confirmed – residents in many areas began taking up the traditional, so-called “struggle songs,” which sing not just of liberating the black population, but pledge the mass-murder of whites. There are many songs and variations on them, but among the most common themes are “kill the Boer, kill the farmer,” “bring me my machine gun” and similar genocidal topics.

While officially considered “hate speech” – even incitement to genocide – the songs advocating the mass-murder of European-descent South Africans were popular with Mandela and remain a regular feature of politics. Even the current president, Jacob Zuma, regularly sings the songs at political rallies.

Often dismissed as just old “struggle” songs, even by many Afrikaners, experts have long warned that such rhetoric can easily contribute to atrocities.

In South Africa, some Afrikaners are on edge, too.

“It sounds more like a war cry than anything else,” said South African analyst Jacques Maré, who describes himself as a minority-rights activist. “The atmosphere is charged.”

“The mood of the crowd in the township seems to be excited, unlike the somber emotions one would expect,” Maré told WND as he monitored developments intently from Pretoria. “It is going to be a difficult and uneasy time for the ethnic-European minority of South Africa.”

Night of the long knives?

For years, significant segments of all race groups in the “rainbow nation” of South Africa have feared that after the passing of Mandela, a shadowy plan to slaughter Afrikaners dubbed “Uhuru,” or “freedom,” could be set in motion.

The alleged genocidal scheme, sometimes referred to as the “night of the long knives,” is back in the global headlines as reporters from Britain to the United States describe the fears of South Africa’s whites, who now make up less than 10 percent of the population.

A report published by the London Guardian referred to it all as an “urban myth,” but acknowledged that the fear remains in some segments.

“They always talk about the night of the long knives. We’re quite scared about it,” preschool teacher Madeleine Prollus was quoted as saying. “Mandela was always the one who said he wouldn’t allow it to happen, but now he’s gone.”

Another South African quoted in the report said his children were worried that 10 days after Mandela’s death – the eve of the Blood River anniversary – the situation would turn “bad.”

Whites were hardly the only ones expressing concerns.

“It’s not going to be good,” 28-year-old Sharon Qubeka, a secretary from Tembisa township, told Reuters. “I think it’s going to become a more racist country. People will turn on each other and chase foreigners away.”

“Mandela was the only one who kept things together,” she argued.

Many communities began making extensive preparations for potential eventualities as far back as a decade ago – especially after witnessing the atrocities perpetrated against whites by the regime of Marxist strongman and Mandela ally Robert Mugabe in neighboring Zimbabwe and the current ruling alliance in South Africa composed of the African National Congress, or ANC, and the powerful South African Communist Party.

In recent years, especially, even prominent media outlets across the West have highlighted the potential for mass unrest and violence directed at European-descent minorities in South Africa.

Just two months ago, barely noticed outside of South Africa, a small group of Afrikaners, including a prominent celebrity, gathered for a protest against the farm murders dubbed “Red October.”

Especially troubling, according to analysts who monitor and track threats and violence aimed at Afrikaners, are social-media posts made after Mandela’s death vowing to exterminate European-descent South Africans.

In a hate-filled Dec. 5 post titled “The Bullet or the Bullet,” the South Africa-based outfit “BlaqSoul Afrika,” which is affiliated with the openly genocidal New Black Panther Party, proclaimed, “We are not fighiting [sic] a faceless oppressor, the oppressor is not just a system of white supremacy, the oppressor is the white race, and when we speak of the distraction [sic] of white supremacy in its totality, we speak of the distraction [sic] of the white race in its totality!”

The post presumably meant “destruction” of the white race, rather than distraction.

Concluding, the outfit ended with a call to exterminate descendants of Europeans: “Now repeat after me Black woman and Black man: The oppressor has a face and the face is white. We ought to wipe out the white face, ending our suffering as a people! Black power!”

The same group previously posted: “As much as South Africans are banned from singing ‘Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer’ in public, that is what they dream of everyday [sic].”

Even though the genocidal sentiments are hardly considered “mainstream” in South Africa, they are prevalent enough that politicians from Europe, genocide experts and many Afrikaner leaders have sounded the alarm.

More than just revenge

According to experts like Dr. Stanton, however, the forces behind the scenes stirring up the racial hatred and unrest do not see it as an end in itself. Instead, it is a means to another end: finalizing the imposition of communist tyranny on South Africa.

Particularly troubling is the example set in neighboring Zimbabwe by loyal Mandela and ANC ally Robert Mugabe, a brutal Marxist dictator who has ruled the nation with an iron fist.

As part of his regime’s consolidation of total power, white farmers there were tortured, murdered and evicted from the nation en masse. Their land was seized and redistributed to political cronies who knew nothing about farming.

“Nelson Mandela’s renowned and illustrious political life will forever remain a beacon of excellence,” Mugabe said after the announcement that South Africa’s revolutionary leader had passed away.

In a span of a few decades, the Zimbabwean tyrant managed to destroy the nation so thoroughly that it went from being known as “the breadbasket of Africa” to mass-starvation and dependence on international food aid.

Zimbabwe’s despot, almost universally considered a pariah, might seem like a far cry from the “democratic” South African government led by Mandela’s ANC and its Communist Party partners.

However, more than a few observers have suggested that, absent a dramatic change in course, South Africa may eventually follow Zimbabwe into chaos, war, starvation and elimination of European-descent Africans.

With popular anger over ANC-SACP government cronyism, corruption and lawlessness on the rise, meanwhile, anti-Afrikaner and anti-market demagogues are becoming increasingly influential. The radicals feel Mandela – once a key member of the Soviet-backed South African Communist Party leadership who helped lead a terror campaign that left mostly civilians dead – did not go far enough.

Among the most alarming to critics is Marxist firebrand Julius “Juju” Malema, the former Youth Leader of Mandela’s ANC.

Claiming that the ANC was not radical enough in its drive to crush Afrikaners under the guise of lifting up blacks, Malema recently founded a new political party known as “Economic Freedom Fighters,” or EFF. One of its stated goals: “Fight white males.”

In its founding document, the EFF also calls for the “transfer of all land to the state,” nationalization of virtually everything – banks, mines and more – along with seizure of wealth and an even more powerful government.

So far, Malema has attracted cadres of enthusiastic supporters, but he remains largely on the fringes after his falling out with the ruling ANC.

As the economy continues in what many analysts say may ultimately be its death spiral, however, ludicrous promises made by Malema and people like him – free wealth for everyone through total state control – may appear increasingly appealing.

The end result of such a scenario, as has been shown dozens of times over the last century, would almost certainly be bloodshed, grinding poverty, and horror, according to analysts who spoke to WND.

Blood River

Virtually no two analysts agree on precisely where South Africa goes from here. Not everyone is entirely pessimistic, however.

South African analyst Jacques Maré also cited an Afrikaner group that called for calm after Mandela’s death, urging its members to prepare for the Dec. 16 “Day of the Vow.”

On that day, exactly 175 years ago, a key historical development in the history of the Afrikaner people took place: the Battle of Blood River.

A Voortrekker party and its leader, Piet Retief, had been betrayed after signing a treaty with Zulu king Dingaan. Using deception, the Zulu leader brutally murdered Retief, his son, and his small party following the agreement.

After the murders, the Zulu king assembled some 10,000 to 20,000 warriors, who promptly set out to track down and slaughter the rest of the Voortrekkers in the area. Almost 200, including women, children and babies, were ruthlessly killed.

Before the Battle of Blood River on Dec. 16, 1838, a small group of Voortrekkers, led by pastor Sarel Celliers, took an oath to God. They pledged that if the Lord would grant them victory over the massive Zulu force, they and their descendants would celebrate and honor the day in perpetuity.

When the Zulu attack came, the tiny, 470-strong Voortrekker party killed some 3,000 Zulus, suffering no casualties in the process, outside of some minor wounds.

The Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, built 100 years after Blood River, still stands today as a reminder of the victory, which segments of the Afrikaner population still hold was granted by God.

“It is now more than ever of special significance for us, because our people believe that God delivered us from annihilation on that day in 1838,” Maré explained. “It will indeed be even more of a miracle and a testament of our faith, if the same should happen again 175 years later, don’t you think?”

Analyst Henri Le Riche, an Afrikaner patriot and South African exile who closely monitors developments in his homeland and is well-known among the expat community, told WND, “With the death of Mandela, a new era will start.”

“First, the beginning of the end of the ANC,” he said. “The ANC used Mandela like a mascot, and also like smoke and mirrors. With him out the way, and after the news subsided, the focus will change, but they will try and get as much exposure out of Mandela’s death till the South African elections next year. The outside world’s focus will now shift to the real ANC government of South Africa.”

With the death of Mandela, the eyes of the world are now on the rainbow nation. Obama even ordered U.S. flags flown at half-mast. Where it all goes from here, though, is hard to determine.

Based on current trends – economic indicators, for example, and the explosion of murder and rape across the country – analysts largely agree that every day, there appears to be less and less reason for optimism about the future of South Africa.